Fire the Canon

Here we are, perfectly in time for spooky season, reading one of the original vampire books. And this time? It’s a chick. Come listen to us talk about the classic vampire novella Carmilla by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu (NOT a woman), which both inspired and defeated Dracula by 26 years. As an added bonus, it's also a heartwarming father-daughter tale! Kind of!

Jackie is an adult again. Rachel doesn’t step on any toes. Bekah has Polidori energy. Nikita is in France, so you won't hear a dang thing from her. 

Topics include: Dad Chat, Family Feud, accidentally gay classics, The Emperor’s New Groove, Kim Kardashian’s legal progress, two enormous nieces, taking the Bysshe, anagram freaks, Carmen Maria Machado, schloss facts, dunking on Byron, and a wonderful poetry story featuring Carl Phillips and Ross White.

This week, in honor of (belated) National Poetry Month, we present to you the adorable and magnificent life of Jackie's favorite dead poet, Jack Gilbert, who beat out at least three other poets for this honor due to being Not Boring or Racist.

Rachel has an important announcement you will wait a long time for. Bekah's favorite poet is Howard Stern. Jackie edits a Wikipedia page repeatedly and then gives up. Nikita is here in spirit but not in form.

Topics include: Clerical errors, circus hijinks, an autosomal dominant family history of falling from great heights, Sean Lennon, bhangra dancing, being forced to try out for a musical, Allen Ginsberg not liking Allen Ginsberg's poetry, angels dictating poems to mere mortals, Beat poets blowing it, a thorax exoskeleton designed for European adventure, ants in saucepans, hairs in avocado plants, maybe being married and maybe not, the importance of not having a nothing day, and of course, weird porn that no one had to make but made anyway.

Sources:

Jack Gilbert - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Gilbert

The Ghost Inside: A Profile of Jack Gilbert - by Sarah Manguso https://www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/68485/the-ghost-inside

The Jack Gilbert Papers: Emory University Libraries
https://archives.libraries.emory.edu/repositories/7/resources/2748

Jack Gilbert - Poets.org
https://poets.org/poet/jack-gilbert#tabbed-content

My Mother Taught Me: A Poet’s Misadventures in Erotica - by Dan Piepenbring
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/02/18/my-mother-taught-me/#more-82843

Jack Gilbert, The Art of Poetry No. 91, interviewed by Sarah Fay - The Paris Review
https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5583/the-art-of-poetry-no-91-jack-gilbert

A Review of Refusing Heaven by Jack Gilbert - by Sarah Manguso
https://www.thebeliever.net/jack-gilberts-refusing-heaven/

The 'Stubborn Gladness' of Elizabeth Gilbert's Favorite Poet - by Joe Fassler

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/11/the-stubborn-gladness-of-elizabeth-gilberts-favorite-poet/281158/?gift=UUEirFtRmMpatJDRb4kN01vcMB3hTEFChlmfUCvfgh8

Jack Gilbert, American Poet, Dies at 87 - by David Haglund
https://slate.com/culture/2012/11/jack-gilbert-dead-poet-was-87.html 

Poet Jack Gilbert’s time of triumph and loss - by John Penner
https://www.latimes.com/books/la-xpm-2012-nov-12-la-et-jc-jack-gilbert-20121112-story.html

Jack Gilbert dies at 87; unconventional poet knew fame and obscurity - by John Penner
https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-jack-gilbert-20121114-story.html

Jack Gilbert, a Poet Whose Words Transformed Lives, Is Dead at 87 - by Bruce Weber
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/15/books/jack-gilbert-a-poet-off-the-literary-grid-dies-at-87.html

This week we have a Patreon bonus for you (a few days late, or several days early, depending on how you're experiencing time). This is a free preview - for the full episode, and all our previous bonus episodes and other perks, join our Patreon at patreon.com/firethecanon! 

Greetings, loyal listeners! In this episode, we mention nary a book at all until like the last 10 seconds! Instead, we explain What Happened during our many-month break from the podcast, beginning with a sudden and unexpected Big Life Event for Jackie, continuing with some real crazy hijinks involving a man rolling around in the snow, a mysterious bag of spiders, and some feral cats living in the walls, and ending with Rachel's baby being fat-shamed by a rich woman. Also, Bekah is trying to get jacked and Nikita is a huge grifter. 

Thanks for sticking by us even as our lives slightly fall apart and are rebuilt piece by ridiculous piece. Onward and upward! 

We’re back! We missed you! Just in time for summer of 2026, which we planned from the very beginning. (We actually recorded this podcast before our unexpected break, so come back next episode for the explanation. There is one, and it's valid, we think.) 

In this episode, we talk about the J.D. Salinger short story A Perfect Day for Bananafish. We previously talked about his book The Catcher in the Rye (feel free to go back and listen to that miniseries!), but he also wrote a bunch of short stories about the fictional Glass family, of which this is one. The story content is pretty serious, but we have a li’l fun with it.

Nikita would prefer not to; Jackie has perfect audio; Bekah hates to say it; Rachel continues to not have a crush on Gabe from The Office.

Topics include: Polyphemus, the evergreen-ness of Bartleby, cornhole, The Summer I Turned Pretty, white male freaks (positive), HIPAA violations, scurvy, unprepared hostage-takers, mayonnaise, and the perfect cream cheese to bagel ratio.

Welcome to our spooooooky Halloween bonus episode that we put out at the exact right time! One could also think of it as being right on time, because as Host Jackie likes to say, it's spooky season until Thanksgiving, and then it is Christmas. We hope you enjoy the visual gag we smartly included in this audio-only podcast. :) In this episode we discuss Goosebumps 5, The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb by R. L. Stein, in which an annoying child gets himself wrapped up (get it?) in supernatural misadventures, but this time, it’s in Egypt! Nikita discusses her Encyclopedia phase. Bekah insults a fictional child. Jackie tries and fails to get everyone pumped up. Rachel critiques someone’s kidnapping instincts.

Topics include: ethnic ambiguity, whether you should drink a Coke when you’re dying, Doogie Howser, M.D., Egypt phases, a super hot guy with an unfriendly face, the Taming of the Shrew sequel, Encarta, pre-9/11 airport security, the Lost Refrigerator of Money, the worst most dangerable time, Kermit the Frog, snappy scorpions, scented toilet paper, an ancient high school ring, fuck-ass cousins who make fun of you all the time, and shrimpification.

This is a free preview of a Patreon bonus episode. To get full access to this and other bonus episodes, sign up for a support tier at patreon.com/firethecanon!

Welcome to Season 7! We're kicking things off with an author bio of the one and only JD Salinger, a man of few words and fewer balls. 

Rachel has a healthy 6-month old Book. Bekah is a newly engaged, newly minted doctor. Jackie has a brand new computer that, it turns out, is sadly awful at audio processing but is soon to be replaced. Nikita is on vacation and Jackie definitely doesn't hate her.

Topics include: two-timing two kids, Sylvia the maybe former N*zi, getting rejected from The New Yorker about a hundred times, a meeting with Hemingway, clarinet nightmares, the best actor at Camp Wigwam, Shalom in the Home, an exhaustive list enumerating everything wrong with Catcher, Charlie Chaplin aka Mista Steal Yo Girl, swinging one's thyroid around one's head, and Vienna, Italy. 

Wow, you thought we were dead! No, we were just taking a prolonged nap... in the dirt... in a cemetery... look, things got a little rocky in the lives of your hosts for a while, but fear not, we are back and renewed and ready to go. We were just building anticipation, you know? 

Rachel's baby is in a sort of Schödinger's box situation - she exists (now now) and doesn't exist (now at the time of recording). Jackie sucks and apologizes for sucking. Bekah helpfully reminds everyone what the heck happened in the last installment. Nikita is given the honor of the stinger at the end of the episode. 

Topics include: the answer to the age-old question of how bald Book Best is, the type of siblings who want a more intimate relationship, uterus didelphys, hasty hysterectomies, a genetically-not-great marriage prospect, heavy foreshadowing about a guy who just loves being alive, Frankenstein-inspired nightmares, the literal fighting Irish, a very disturbing dentistry story, an extraordinarily old pregnant woman, the return of the Corn Man, and a lot - a LOT - of jumping out of windows. 

Welcome back for part 2 of the amazing Frankenstein, or: a pale nerd who sucks, has sucked, and will continue to suck. In this penultimate part of the series, we hear the story of The Creature's early life and the family he watched do literally everything for like two years without them knowing. 

Bekah has to exorcise her cat. Rachel doesn't know the difference between colonoscopies and prostate exams, she just knows something goes up a butt. Jackie had many, many chances to read this book. Nikita is the only one who makes any sense, earning her the title of The Kermit of the Podcast.

Topics include: wonderful ligaments, interviewing the author of Tire Discounters ads, riches to rags and it stays at rags, a schlong that's probably bigger than Victor's, skin-colored leggings, weird shirts from Jackie's grandma, and the joy of boating at night alone on a dark lake with a monster nearby.

Amidst a long, dark winter, which only now may be loosening its icy grip, we emerge from the shadows to bring you part 1 of 3 of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's 'Frankenstein, or: The Modern Prometheus'. We meet Victor, his family (only one of whom does he have romantic inclinations toward - can we say woke king?), and his best friend, the Clerv. Join us to learn just what can go wrong when you spend all your formative years reading the 1800s equivalent of Dianetics, skip 90% of your chemistry classes, and then endeavor to create the perfect human from scratch. 

Bekah wants to take a peek at a baby butt. Rachel boobytraps a stranger in a toilet. Nikita repeatedly insists she doesn't actively want to eat a person, but it gets weird after a while. Jackie gets absolutely dogpiled by the rest of the crew.

Topics include: racial profiling of monsters, cannibalism, looking homeless in Milan, the brain changes that lead postpartum mothers to suddenly start sending everyone pictures of child butts, making lerv in this clerv, Lenny and the bunnies, Wendy's, Soylent Green, a wet angry lady, and the fanciest bathroom in Italy.